Chaos series by Kristen Ashley

She made a choking noise then burst out laughing.

I grabbed her hand, held tight and smiled.

When she stopped laughing, we sipped more wine, then I squeezed her hand until she looked at me.

“I’m going to be okay,” I shared and strangely, the words came out resolved.

I meant it.

I would.

And I knew that because, throughout the conversation, my monster hadn’t made an appearance.

Not once.

I didn’t fool myself it was over. It was just that, the first step was easy so maybe the next ones wouldn’t be so hard.

It was bittersweet to admit that Hop had been right. We talked and Ty-Ty felt better.

So did I.

“I know,” she replied.

She believed in me.

Yes, maybe the next steps wouldn’t be so hard.

“Mostly, I’ll be okay because I’ve got you,” I whispered.

She pressed her lips together.

I lunged toward her and hugged her.

Ty-Ty, my best girl, hugged me back.

* * *

Tyra had been gone for five minutes when I heard the Harley pipes pulling up my back alley.

I was standing at the sink, rinsing out the wineglasses and I went still. My eyes slowly moved to the back doors when those pipes stopped in my back drive.

Oh God.

Had it been Hop who came earlier? Did he see Tyra’s car in my drive and ride away?

The answer to these questions came clear when I saw him walk through the gate and into my courtyard.

Oh God!

Damn.

I watched him, eyes on me, walk through my courtyard.

Right. This was okay. I’d locked the door. I always locked the doors. I would ignore him, finish rinsing the wineglasses, turn out the lights, go upstairs and fall apart up there where he couldn’t see.

I turned off the water, set the glass aside and did all of this with my eyes on Hop, who came right to the glass door but didn’t knock. He didn’t call. He crouched, pulling something out of the back pocket of his jeans. Then he worked at the lock.

My mouth dropped open.

I heard the lock click.

My breath caught in my throat.

Wow.

He picked my lock.

He straightened and walked in, sliding the door closed behind him.

I stood staring at him, statue-still.

He took three steps in, stopped and asked, “You talk to Tyra?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“No, babe, did you talk to Tyra?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

“Good,” he whispered back and God, that whisper, full of pride and relief.

It killed.

I straightened my shoulders. “Hop—”

“Now we gotta talk,” he declared.

I shook my head. “That isn’t happening.”

“Lanie, I gave you some time. Now we gotta sort this shit out.”

Oh. He didn’t show last night because he was giving me time.

That was nice.

And supremely unfortunate because it was too late.

“There’s nothing to sort. It’s over,” I announced.

“Babe,” he leaned toward me, “it isn’t.”

“Hopper,” I leaned toward him, “it is.”

He leaned back and studied me.

Then he said, “What we got, you know, it’s worth gettin’ past this.”

“I know what we have and it isn’t worth that work,” I retorted and his body twitched.

“Come again?”

I threw out a hand. “I know how this goes, Hopper. I’ve been here before. I fall for a guy and he makes stuff about me he doesn’t like clear, and I knock myself out to stop doing that stuff, and I’m not me anymore.”

“You fell for me?”

I clamped my mouth shut.

Hop’s face got soft and he took another step toward me. “We’ll let that go for now and start with the other. What is it you think I don’t like about you?”

“The drama,” I answered.

He grinned. “Babe, I like the drama.”

“You throw it in my face all the time when we’re fighting.”

“And lady, I f**kin’ love it when we fight because I love how we make up and don’t bullshit me, you love it too.”

He wasn’t wrong about that.

“Anyway, I never said I didn’t like it,” he went on.

“You’re always bringing it up.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t like it.”

“Well, I’ll give you some insight. Insight, I’ll note, that you already know with your speech about stuff soaking into women, burning a wound that will never heal. If you mention something, it’s going to be on my mind and since I…” I tried to find the right word that didn’t expose too much, “cared about you, I’d work myself into a tizzy trying to tone it down. Willing to do anything to make sure I don’t drive you away, drive you to do what my dad does to my mom.”

“I’m not your dad,” he returned instantly.

“That doesn’t matter, either, Hopper. It’s just who I am, how I work, what I do,” I shared.

“What your dad does to your mom is not on your mom. It’s on your dad. He’s a dick, he does that to his family and a bigger dick, he does it for decades,” Hop continued like I didn’t speak.

“That’s true. But that’s not the point.”

“Yeah, it f**kin’ is. You think you gotta tone down you so you won’t drive your man to another woman’s pu**y. That shit’s whacked, Lanie.”

“Well, it’s how I’ve been conditioned to think.”

“Then stop thinking it.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“Then let me help you work that shit out.”

“God!” I cried, throwing up both my hands. I’d tried, I’d really tried to tamp down the drama but he wouldn’t shut up! “Hopper, we don’t work!”

“Lanie, that’s total f**kin’ bullshit and you know it.”

“How, if you look back from start to finish, is any of the mess that was us a good thing? Fighting. Drama. Me pushing you away, you pushing back. You cutting me out then thinking you can just say you f**ked up and all would be okay. It’s lunacy.”

“That’s a goddamned relationship, Lanie.”

“Well it hurts,” I hissed. “And I didn’t spend seven f**king years guarding myself from that pain only to have it shoved down my throat!” I ended on a shout.

“Jesus, lady, are you seriously gonna stand there and tell me you don’t remember all the good we had, and there was a lot of good in there, Lanie, good so good it was the best and it totally f**kin’ outweighed the bad in time and importance, and you’re gonna throw us away just because you’re shit scared?”